Crimson
I turned around with my eyes to the ground and slowly followed them upward. I saw the black converse sneakers, then the navy-blue jeans that fit him perfectly. I saw the white arms descending from the black sleeves of his snug button-up shirt. And then I saw the creamy white neck sprouting from beneath the collar and giving way to a smoothly rounded chin, a chiseled jaw, the perfect nose and arching brows, and all of it crowned with beautiful wavy blond hair that hung just above his shoulders.
His hair was a color I had not seen before. It was a strange yet perfect mixture of blond and gray. No, it would be a crime to use such simple, plain colors to describe it. It was more like liquid gold with a faint silvery shine. It was the color of electrum like the metal had been cut into a thousand flawless curling strands.
But what held my attention most was his eyes. From the darkness of his shadowed face, his eyes gleamed in a way that seemed to violate some vital law of nature. They were mesmerizing. Two orbs of deep ocean blue with violet at the center. They were focused unblinkingly on me so I could not look away. I saw no hostility in those eyes, no anger. In fact, what I saw looked like relief. And strangely, I felt like I had seen those eyes before, like we had met before. The sense of recognition was overwhelming but clearly misplaced. I would have known if I had met Nicholae Albaric before.
And finally, I wasn’t afraid anymore. If he was going to kill me, what better way to die than in the arms of someone so beautiful, someone I had been completely obsessed with for years? Maybe I deserved to die after wishing for Stephen’s death…
What happened next, I would never have conceived even in my most indulgent of dreams. With speed so swift I did not even see him move, he embraced me.
It was such a soft embrace, his hard arms folding around me so gently as though he feared I might break. And I just stood there, a statue, in shock, not understanding why he would hold me so sweetly.
He let go slowly and pulled back to look me in the eye.
“Hi, Crimson,” he said, his voice laced with seraphic magic, sweet and even.
“You know my name,” I breathed, dazed as one lost in Orpheus’ poppy field.
He laughed, and the sound rang like elysian chimes in my ears.
“Yes,” he said, smiling with a secret I was not privy to. “I have for some time now. Why don’t you come inside, so we can talk?”
With one hand softly at my back, he led me into the house, and like a moth to a flame, I was helpless not to follow.
The living room was filled with lavishly expensive things—lovely old French chaises, a beautiful cherry wood coffee table, an antique grandfather clock with authentic gold hands and numbers, paintings by the masters, statues and busts and ancient Greek pots…It was like a museum in here, only vastly more comfortable.
He sat on the pink and gold wood-framed French loveseat and beckoned me to join him. I shakily sat next to him, and he looked at me with such a sweet, coddling smile, as if I was something precious. If I wasn’t in the twilight zone before, I sure as hell was now.
“Please, just relax,” he said. “Don’t be so stiff. I want you to be comfortable.”
Wanting to appease him, I sat back on the cushion and tried to loosen my tight shoulders. All I could think was, Oh my God, I’m actually sitting right next to Nicholae!, and it made my stomach twitch.
“Perhaps if you hear me talk, you will calm down,” he said. “A year ago, I got a call from my lawyer. He informed me that my accounts were being monitored by a foreign intruder. So, I met with him, and together we tracked it down to the source. It wasn’t difficult for him to follow the trace back to your computer, especially since the protection software you were using wasn’t very good.”
Damn that Damien, I thought. I was so sure that, with Damien’s computer skills, I would be safe. I had no idea that anyone, especially Nicholae himself, would ever be aware of my presence.
“I was intrigued,” he went on. “A mortal had discovered that I wasn’t just some fictional character, and she was watching me, my accounts, my addresses, everything. I went straight to Tucson to find out who you were, make sure you weren’t someone I should worry about.”
I gulped as he spoke, realizing how truly naïve I had been last year when this all started. If it had been any other vampire, and they had found me snooping like that, I was sure they would have killed me.
“I was surprised when I showed up at your house and found you. You were a sixteen-year-old girl, beautiful and clever, and I saw in your mind that the reason you were tracking me was that…you loved me! You had read all my books and, despite knowing who and what I was, you still adored me and wanted to meet me.
“I became very interested in you, so I started watching you. At night I would come to your house and just sit outside your window or walk around your neighborhood, listening in on your thoughts, your conversations, the TV shows you watched…” He smiled, and it was so heartbreakingly beautiful. “I know you won’t believe me, but…it was so easy to fall in love with you. You are so sweet, so innocent. You’re intelligent and creative and refreshingly naïve. And your mind works so quickly. You pick up new information and new subjects like a sponge in water.”
He smiled, and he lifted his hand to brush my cheek with his fingers. His touch was cold against my cheek, making me shiver. But it was so gentle and tantalizing that it warmed my belly and sent static across my skin.
“I was completely enamored by you. I still am,” he sighed, his gaze soft on my face. “I decided that I was going to bring you over, to turn you, if you were willing. But I couldn’t do it just yet; it would be too difficult for you, to leave your friends and your family so early. And I wanted to give you the chance to come to know me on a personal level before you decided to accept eternity with me. I had to introduce myself in just the right way. I would wait until you graduated high school and could leave your family as you would naturally. I vowed to myself and to you that I would not enter your life until then.
“But then you found your chance to meet me through your own devices. You were going to come to New York with your high school band and planned to sneak off and meet me—there was a slight dilemma. I couldn’t just stand you up and leave you to wander around this bloodthirsty city by yourself. After careful thought, I decided it would be fine to let our encounter happen sooner. And…I wanted to see you. I have waited centuries to find you, and this last year of waiting has been the hardest of them all. I had to be here waiting for you when you came, and I would do whatever I could to sweep you off your feet. Did I do a good job?”
“You have no idea,” I said dazedly.
“Good.” He stared at me for a moment, making me blush and look away.
I didn’t know what to say. All this time, he had known I was on to him, and he had fallen in love with me? I was no one special. Why should he love me?
“I almost had to blow my cover two weeks ago, though,” he said, shaking his head.
Two weeks ago? What did he mean?
“I never expected you would get yourself in trouble up in the mountains. I heard your voice calling for help, and I raced across Tucson to get to you. It was the first time in my life that I felt like my speed was not enough. I got there just as the bear was about to have you. You had fainted only seconds before, and the bear was so very close to ending your life. I ripped him from you and got you free of the trench. After I healed your ankle and the scratches on your arms, I brought you to the ranger station with your mom and friends.”
The memory of the hiking trip gone awry replayed in my head, and suddenly the image flashed my mind—the gorgeous blond ranger who wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Oh my god, that was you!” I exclaimed, stunned with every fiber of my being that I had been so close to Nicholae and had no idea.
Nicholae nodded, and I didn’t know how I could have missed this realization when I first saw him.
“So, I didn’t imagine the bear,” I thought out loud. “That really happened. I knew it was too real to be a dream.” I looked up at Nicholae, my eyes eating him up like he was candy. “Why didn’t you say something then?”
Nicholae took a deep breath. “If I had exposed myself to you then, I don’t know if I could have stopped myself from turning you on the spot, I was so worked up over almost having lost you. And your mom and friends were looking for you. It just wasn’t the right time for us to officially meet yet.”
“So that’s why you were so evasive,” I said. “I thought you were just a jerk.” I laughed nervously, then bit my lip, instantly kicking myself for admitting that.
He chuckled sardonically. “Yea, I know, I could hear your thoughts loud and clear.”
I blushed. “Oh, sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” he said with a laugh. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re safe, and neither of us has to wait anymore.” His deep ocean eyes delved meaningfully into mine, and we just stared at each other for a long moment.
There was so much I needed to process. He was offering me eternity, eternity as a vampire. Of course, I had fantasized about it all my adolescent life. But now that death had touched me, I realized what it meant to take a life. If I became a vampire, I would have to kill people, or animals. I would have to bring death to something in order to live on a daily basis.
“That’s not necessarily true,” Nicholae interrupted my inner monologue. “There are those of us that only take safe amounts of blood from humans, then strip those humans’ memories and let them get on with their lives. Although, it does take quite a bit of control to do so, to draw back before taking a fatal amount of blood. But it can be done.
“These are all the things I want you to consider before making your decision. I want you to be fully aware of the benefits and the consequences of being a vampire. Understand, truly understand, that being immortal means that you will never die of natural causes, and you will be doomed to watch loved ones die over and over again. But being immortal also means that you will get to be witness to so many wondrous things. You will get to see the passage of time as no one else can, to see the progress of technology and the growth of nations. And, if you are lucky enough to find friends in the blood and love in the blood…” he reached out and took my hand, holding it for a moment as if it were a treasure. “Well, everlasting love is what we all aspire to find. I had all but given up on that before I found you, or rather, you found me.”
And there it was again, perhaps the most important thing he had said, the one thing that was the farthest beyond belief, that he had fallen in love with me. I wasn’t usually one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I needed to understand why.
“Why?” I asked. “What is so special about me that you would choose to be with me rather than anyone else? You must have known hundreds of girls in your lifetime, and with your telepathy, you have seen into the hearts of countless thousands. I just don’t understand what makes me different.”
“That’s just it, Crimson,” he said “I couldn’t explain it if I tried. You have amazing strength in you, an inner beauty that shines so much brighter than your physical allure. Your mind works in a way wholly unlike anyone else I have come across, and it fascinates me. And your soul, it comforts and grounds me in a way I’ve never felt before.
“Do you remember a few nights after you had started tracking me, you were sitting outside on your back porch, my latest book on your lap. I had been watching you for a few days, growing more and more interested in you. In truth, a bit infatuated already. I was strolling along the sidewalk around your neighborhood, telepathically tuning into you, and stealing glimpses of you through your fence as I passed by.
“You were so excited by everything you were learning about me, you were just buzzing with hope. Then you did something I wasn’t expecting, you started talking to me.”
The memory of that vaguely returned to me. Me sitting in the rocking chair on my back patio, stroking the cover of his book.
“Ahh, Nicholae,” I had whispered. “I have discovered your secret. How brilliantly you pulled it off. You wanted the world to know your story, but in a way that was safe for you, for your kind. Passing it all off as a work of fiction through an eager human writer.” I had looked down at his book and flipped through the pages. “I can’t believe it’s all real. You actually lived through all the events in these pages. You must be the most fascinating person I’ve ever heard of.” And then I had thought about everything I had read, really thought about it, all the tragedies he had been through. “And perhaps the most tortured. To have survived so much heartache. I can’t imagine the burden your soul carries. If I could meet you, I would help you carry it. I would rescue you from the sea of despair you must be in, even if you don’t realize you’re drowning.”
“Your words struck a chord in me,” Nicholae said presently. “I hadn’t ever really admitted to myself how much pain I was in, night in and night out, how lonely I was. And you, this young human girl who had never even met me, you had the depth of soul to see into mine, and the caring nature to want to mend me. That was the night I fell in love with you, even though I didn’t admit it to myself for a few months.”
His handsome face was glowing with an affection I had never seen before, a love that was unselfish and raw, and it was aimed at me. His eyes hypnotized me again, pulling me into a powerful trance.
Before I knew what I was doing, I kissed him.
My lips met his, velvety soft despite the hardness of his inhuman body. They received mine, tender and submissive, not demanding as Stephen’s had been. His lips said without words that I had all the power here. I breathed in the scent of him, sweet and indefinable, filling my senses to the point of drug-induced euphoria. My breathing grew heavy as I slowly moved my lips against his, opening them in invitation. When he opened his mouth and ever so softly caressed my tongue with his, my body went into overdrive.
Driven by an overwhelming desire for more of him, I kissed him hungrily, trying to devour his mouth, and he kept pace so perfectly, like we were in sync, two parts of a whole working together.
I had never wanted someone so much in my entire life. I had never felt such a physical or emotional ache such as this. Lust was not an accurate enough word, though it was the only in my vocabulary that came close. My breasts hummed to be pressed against him, so I did. My loins throbbed for him, so I climbed on top of his lap, electrified when I felt the hardness between his legs press against my throbbing, the evidence of his equal desire for me. He closed his arms around my waist, still so gentle, and I reveled in the feel of his fingertips running over my lower back. I was in a frenzy, unaware of anything but the feel of him everywhere, the smell of him driving me wild!
I had to have more! I reached blindly for his belt.
He broke our lip lock and pulled me back, the sudden loss of sensation shocking my system.
“Not yet,” he said breathlessly. He easily lifted me off his lap and planted me back on the couch, then he stood up and combed his hair back with his fingers, sighing heavily.
As my fast breaths drew in fresh air untainted by his intoxicating scent, my lust quelled, but only enough for me to think a bit more clearly. I had totally lost control with him. I had never felt such desire for someone, and I had often praised myself for my self-control. But with Nicholae, at that moment, I knew nothing else but my hunger for him.
“It’s what we do,” Nicholae said, his voice thicker, rougher. “Our scent is meant to draw you in, to make you surrender to us. It doesn’t always affect humans so strongly though. I wasn’t expecting this reaction.” He let out a breathy laugh.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling ashamed and embarrassed.
“No, please, don’t be,” he implored. “How a human already feels toward us increases the effect, it just took me off guard, that’s all.”
I nodded, then was drawn in by the sight of the bulge in his pants and my body throbbed again.
“Why did you stop?” I asked.
“I want to take things slow,” he said. “You mean too much to me. I want everything to be perfect.”
This was such a strange feeling for me. I had always kept others at arm’s length. Even when I started to have feelings for Stephen, I hadn’t wanted to be overly physical yet. And here I was, only having known Nicholae for not even an hour, and giving myself to him was all I could think about. Was that really just because he was a vampire? Was it all due to chemistry? But no, in truth I had known him for years, through his books. I had fallen in love with him a long time ago, and in the flesh, he was even better than I could have imagined he’d be.
I wanted nothing more than to rip his clothes off with my teeth and explore the carnal world I had turned my back on over a decade ago, but I knew he was right. I was grateful that one of us was being rational.
“Now…tell me what you want to do,” he said, taking a cautious step toward me. “We can do absolutely anything you want.”
I want to kiss you more, I said to him in my mind. “But since we have ruled that out for the moment, I just want to talk to you. I want to know everything about you.”
Just then my stomach growled quite loudly, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything in hours out of anxiety.
“We will talk as much as you want to tonight, but you have to eat first,” he insisted. “I don’t often entertain humans, so I don’t have any food here. Let me take you out to eat.”
“Our first date, so soon?” I teased. “Just don’t expect a reward for paying for dinner.” He laughed nervously, seeming grateful that I was making light of our shared torment over each other.